The Celtics, more than most teams, are accustomed to drawing large rooting sections on the road, but there was still a surprising amount of green in the Pepsi Center last night.

A lot of players are angered by this kind of fickleness. In a place like Denver, the turncoats are most likely local. But not many of those players get the opportunity presented to Danilo Gallinari.

The Nuggets forward, a big part of the reason for last night’s 97-90 Celtics loss, was doing his live on-court interview along with teammate Kenneth Faried when he saw a lot of those green jerseys climbing toward the exits.

“I feel bad for all of the Boston fans,” the pride of Lodi, Italy, said into a microphone. “Now they’ll all have to get out of here.”

Much like the team those people came to cheer. The Celtics came out of the All-Star break a bit uneven, especially once they hit the second half and that Rocky Mountain weariness started to kick in.

Jeff Green, who came off the bench to score 20 points, clearly didn’t like it. The Celtics forward later tweeted, “Damn altitude killed me today. Tough loss, but got another one tomorrow.”

But Green wasn’t the only struggling Celtic. At one point coach Doc Rivers, attempting to pull a gassed Kevin Garnett out of the game, spotted George Karl gesturing for his team to push the ball and keep the pace going.

“George knows what he’s doing,” said the Celtics coach. “He’s been around a long time. There’s a reason he didn’t call a timeout. He could see us and Kevin. George could see it. He looked like (North Carolina coach) Roy Williams, just waving let’s go. He could see us going downhill a little bit. That’s why they play here. George is smart and so was (former Nuggets coach) Doug Moe. They know pace in this place is tough.